by Deena Dajani, openDemocracy, UK - The generous and loving Jordanians I had met and filmed were participating in politics and criticising the failings of their representatives; in the most natural way, they were being citizens. But what if I was putting these people at risk for doing no more than saying (for example) “after parliamentarians get elected, they forget everyone and all their promises”?
by Rebecca Murray, IPS News, Italy - A paralysed country is split between the U.S.-backed Sinoira government, and the opposition parties led by Hezbollah and Christian General Michel Aoun, which are allied with Syria and Iran. A parliamentary vote for the current consensus presidential candidate, army head Michel Suleiman, has been delayed for a 16th time this week, leaving the post empty since pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud served out his term last November.
by Moira Herbst, BusinessWeek, USA - China's thirst for oil is causing bloodshed. So says New York-based nongovernmental organization Human Rights First, which on Mar. 13 released a report linking China's rising imports of Sudanese oil with sales of Chinese small weapons to Khartoum, used to further the deadly conflict in the western region of Darfur.
by Moira Schneider, The Jerusalem Post, Israel - The South African Jewish community has been depleted by waves of emigration over the years, which has seen its numbers plummet from 120,000 at its height in the early 1970s to about 75,000 today. Though there is anecdotal evidence that the tide is turning with individuals returning to this country, recent developments here have sparked fears of yet another exodus.
by Amy Goodman, King Features Syndicate
- USA -
Monday was a strange day in Albany. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was scheduled to give a major address to close to 1,000 people, most of whom were women and teens. They were gathered to support and lobby for a reproductive-rights bill in the Empire State Plaza’s strange, iconic building known as The Egg. It is said to be the most progressive such bill introduced by a governor, guaranteeing a woman’s right to an abortion, among other protections.
by Nirupama Subramanian, The Hindu, India - Pakistan on Wednesday said it was “deeply shocked and angered” at the death of a Pakistani prisoner in India, and asked for an explanation of the charges under which he was held and the circumstances of his death.
by Alison Smale, International Herald Tribune, France - Asked whether the United States could repair the damage it has suffered to its reputation during the Bush presidency and especially since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Kouchner replied, "It will never be as it was before."
by Marcela Valente, IPS News, Italy - Argentine companies are competing for professionals and technically skilled employees, and are even hiring students who have not yet graduated, as demand for qualified workers exceeds supply. But the reverse is true among less-skilled workers.
by Megan Tady, Upside Down World, USA - The national diet of Belize – high fat, high starch and few vegetables – is largely attributed to the growing health epidemic.
“Vegetables in general are skipped out of the Belizean diet,” said Mark Miller, executive director of the development organization Plenty Belize. “Most of the cultures here used to have a much healthier way of eating than they do today. As time progresses, people are eating less and less healthy.”
by Nancy A. Youssef, Detroit Free Press, USA - Fallon's phone call ended weeks of speculation within military circles about how long a military commander who appeared to challenge administration policy could hold his job.
by Cindy Sui, Asia Times, Taiwain - At some level or another, mainland Chinese people are increasingly exposed to democracy through Taiwan's presidential election on March 22. The important race, which could possibly write a new chapter in cross-strait relations, makes them keen to learn more about the island, which has been ruled separately since the end of a Chinese civil war in 1949.
by Linda S. Heard, Gulf News, United Arab Emirates - Torture robs society of its humanity, ruins lives, scars souls and is a non-effective means to an end. Those who support it should be made to endure it. Perhaps then they'll experience a change of heart; then again, perhaps not.
by Sabrina Tavernise, International Herald Tribune, France - "The genie is out of the bottle," Altinay said. "Too many people are interested in looking into who we are, who lived on this land before us," for the healing process to be stopped.
by Polina Varazi and Anna Smolchenko, The Moscow Times, Russia - The protest -- which began a week before the March 2 presidential election -- is a surprising throwback to the Yeltsin era, when workers across the country often went without pay for months on end amid a brutal transition to market economics.
by Courtney E. Martin and Deborah Siegel, The Washington Post, USA - We can be fed up with the media's treatment of Clinton and still vote for Obama. We can be inspired by Obama's promise and still vote for Clinton. And when it's time to do battle with John McCain, we must be fiercely committed to throwing our weight behind either Democratic leader.
by Pilar Rahola, pilarrahola.com, Spain - Beneath the deceptively placid surface of everyday life, the British population is engaged in a momentous encounter with Islam. Three developments of the past week, each of them culminating years' long trends – and not just some odd occurrence – exemplify changes now underway.
by Rasna Warah, Daily Nation, Kenya - Because of their colonial history, most Kenyans have a love-hate relationship with ethnic identity. On the one hand, those aspiring to be modern and upwardly-mobile actively disassociate themselves from their ethnic identity — they discourage their children from learning their mother tongue and spend years practising to remove traces of their ethnic accents when speaking English.
by Lydia Polgreen, Scotland on Sunday, Scotland, UK - The janjaweed are back. They came to the dusty town of Suleia in the Darfur region of Sudan riding horses and camels on market day. Almost everybody was in the bustling square. At the first clatter of automatic gunfire, everyone ran. The militiamen destroyed the town – burning huts, pillaging shops, carrying off any loot they could find.
by Frida Ghitis, Star-Telegram, USA - The news of Venezuelan tanks and troops massing along the border with Colombia must have old Latin revolutionaries sighing with nostalgia. It is as if the old days of idealistic dreams, when every bearded university student was a would-be Ché Guevara, had never left.
by Michele A. Berdy, The Moscow Times, Russia - Happy International Women's Day!
My most miserable memories in Russia are standing with a smile frozen on my face as a male member of the (staff) spit out a patently insincere, totally improbable list of my supposed virtues. The more extravagant the praise, the more I felt the opposite. I'd go home with the depressing conviction that I was the most ugly, stupid, mean and cheerless woman in the world.
by Nomi Prins, Mother Jones, USA - This Enron-WorldCom déjà vu is brought to us courtesy of America's housing industry, and the standard narrative is that irrational buyers drove up home values while banks made loans to the wrong people. The truth is that this latest bust is about stock prices as much as housing prices—and that's where the real scandal lurks. Skyrocketing home prices were nothing compared to the bubble experienced by Wall Street's housing sector.
